


Affect

by mumblingmaria



Category: Morning Glories
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 03:31:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mumblingmaria/pseuds/mumblingmaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hey, you can’t sleep. I can’t sleep. Why not ‘not sleep’ together?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Affect

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brella/gifts).



> I asked Gwen for a prompt because I knew she was bound to have a good one. And she did. Hopefully this lives up to the prompt.

It is dark in the dorm room, the only light coming from the crack under the door, the source being the always lit hallway. But there’s enough coming into the room for Casey to see the people in the photo she’s staring at. Her parents are smiling at each other, alive and happy. Something she feels slipping further and further away from her grasp everyday. A single tear falls every once in awhile as she looks on. She’s at her desk, trying to ignore how wrong the room feels since Woodrun. Trying to ignore how wrong she feels now that the insanity has died down a bit. . 

Jade shifts in her sleep, causing the blonde to look up from the photo on the desk. She sighs in relief as her friend settled down, she can easily admit to not being up for dealing with her friend’s nightmares at this moment. 

As her eyes travel back to the photo she notices the light under the door shifting, someone is walking by her room. She glances at her photo before standing up slowly. She grabs a hoodie lying on the floor before making her way to the door. After pulling the clothing over her head, she looks about the room to make sure no one is waking up. Then she quickly opens the door and slips out of the room.

She knows what she’s doing is dumb, it was most likely a guard or a teacher or something out to kill the students walking around out there, trying to lure her out, but there is something about how slowly the steps went by. They have a familiarity to them. They seem lost. 

Casey walks through the halls of the school as quickly as she can without making too much sound. She isn’t sure where she should go, having no idea where the feet have ended up. She tries her luck and takes the hallway to the left of her. The right really isn’t an option though, not with how it leads to the basement, to bad memories, to lost memories. 

Her path eventually leads her to the library. Normally she wouldn’t think twice to look in there, too many cameras to ever be safe (she sure not everyone knows about the blind spot), but the lights are on inside the room. She bites her lip before making her way in. She isn’t sure why she’s going in; this could easily be a trap she’s stepping into, she wouldn’t put it pass Daramount at this point. But something draws her in, something almost welcoming.

Her first thought is that she’s tricked herself into thinking someone is there. The library looks completely deserted upon entering. She almost turns to leave when she hears a number of books fall and someone swear under their breath. She takes a breath in and makes her way to the source of the sound. As she gets closer, she starts to recognize the speaker.

“Seriously how many times do I… this is ridiculous I’ve had to have… oh come…” the voice says. The sound of books moving around makes the blonde curious as to what he’s doing.

She’s at the end of the bookshelf when she speaks, “Hunter?”

Another book falls and she looks around the shelf. Hunter is staring wide eyed at her. She smiles as she makes her way to the book that fell. Picking it up, she tucks her hair behind her ear. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“No, no… it’s okay,” he answers, accepting the book from her. He stares down at the object. “Thanks.”

And then Casey realizes what a mistake she has made. Hunter and her haven’t spoken much since he helped her out of that room weeks ago. She had distance herself from everyone in their group. She wasn’t ready to let anyone in. She still isn’t sure she’s ready to. She still doesn’t know what she’s missing and she honestly doesn’t want anyone to know they’re a void in her heart she can’t explain. 

She looks away from her friend, her ally, her confusion and holds her breath for a moment. She knows she should leave. “Well, I should probably-”

“Can’t sleep?”

“What?” she asks, taken back by his apparent boldness, well boldness for him.

“You can’t sleep, can you?” Hunter asks again, placing the book on the table. Slowly, suddenly unsure of herself, she shakes her head. “Yeah, neither can I. Ever since Woodrun. Zoe dying, me almost dying, you… well it all just keeps playing in my head.”

Casey looks up at him. He seems different. Even though he’s opening up to her, which was normal before they drifted apart… before she turned him down, he seems distant. Like he is saying this out of courtesy for her. She doesn’t like it. But she knows it’s her fault. She knows that if she had just waited, maybe given him an actual chance, hadn’t runaway from him, that he wouldn’t be this distant. She also knows she deserves every bit of his reaction. 

“Hunter, look…” she says, avoiding his piercing green eyes. “About the past few weeks, I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have been avoiding everyone when we’ve all been through something pretty traumatic. I know it was selfish, but I had to. I can’t explain it because I don’t remember what’s wrong, but I’m sorry. I know I wasn’t here for any of you.”

Hunter nods and looks at the books on the table. For a moment, Casey wonders if her apology won’t stay. Maybe she has ruined things too much, though from where she stands now she isn’t sure if that would be the worst thing. She can finally get the distance she intended on having from the being. She could focus on saving just her parents instead of worrying if her friends will live to the next day. She was getting tired. 

But it also terrifies her. She’s independent, yes, but she hasn’t been on her own since getting to the school. Her friends have helped her throughout the weeks they’ve been here. Casey knows that she uses them, they know it by now too, but they’re still here. So if they all suddenly left her, if he suddenly left her…

“Want to give me a hand?” Hunter asks, intruding into her thoughts.

“Sorry, what?” the blonde asks, trying to focus back on him.

“Do you want to help me? I… Well I don’t really know what I’m doing exactly. I’m looking for someone but I don’t know what book she’s in…” Hunter explains. Casey looks at the stacks of books on the table. “I mean, I get if you don’t want to, it’s pretty pointless but…”

Casey smiles and takes a few steps towards him. She grabs a book on the table and opens it, “Hey, you can’t sleep. I can’t sleep. Why not ‘not sleep’ together?”

The ginger’s face lights up. “Really?”

“Sure. This is better than what I was doing before,” she answers. “Besides, we haven’t done anything together in awhile.” 

Hunter nods and picks up a book of his own. She takes a seat at the table as the boy sort of stumbles into the one next to her. They work in silence, flipping through pages upon pages. Every now and then, Casey will show a page to Hunter and only receives his shaking head as a response. This continues for what felt like hours. Eventually they go through all the books on the shelf behind them. 

Casey is flipping through a final book when she notices Hunter staring at her. “What?”

“What?” he asks in reply, looking somewhat shocked.

“You’re staring at me,” the blonde pointed out. “So, what?”

“Oh, no, it’s nothing,” he answers, hand going up to his neck. Casey never noticed before just how much he does this. The she notices that this was the first time tonight he had done it. “Forget about it.”

Biting her lip again, she reaches out to take his hand off of his neck and into her hand. She smiles at him and sees a blush crawling over his face quickly, “Hunter, you know you can tell me, right? I kind of figured that tonight sort of brought us back together as friends.”

He gulps and the blonde can feel his hand getting sweaty in hers. He opens his mouth before closing it again and smiles weakly. A few moments pass and he tries again, “It’s just… you’ve barely changed. It’s amazing but it scares me. I know something’s missing and I know that that’s the problem. Whatever is missing from you has left you unchanged. We’ve all gone through this… this hell and you’re still here shining. I’ve come out of it lost, confused, and probably more useless than ever, but here you are still ready to fight. It’s just… it’s hard to accept that.”

“Oh…” she says, casting her eyes down. How does she answer to that? She didn’t ask to not change throughout but she knows he’s right. For all they know, it’s possible she saw everyone she loves die, everyone getting tortured, everyone losing their way. But she doesn’t remember. She doesn’t know anything that happened to her. When Hunter and Jade told her what happened to them that day, Casey felt so guilty. And that’s why she ran and kept running till now. Even with her parents dead, she may have a way to fix that. But can Hunter ever fix Zoe dying? Can Jade fix the minute trust she had with Ike before he almost shot her? “It’s hard for me to accept too.”

She looks back at the ginger and realizes her hand is still holding his. Their eyes lock and she feels herself leaning forward slightly. She can’t tell if she’s the only one being affected by this sudden magnetic pull.

Inches away from each other she, and apparently he as well, stops and continues to look into his eyes. They’re so green. She knows she’s noticed this before, but it takes her breath away a little each time. They’re like a meadow bathed in sunlight. She could stare at them forever is she wasn’t constantly trying to not die. She wonders what Hunter sees in her eyes.

“Casey…” he whispers and suddenly the magnetic pull is back and she’s terrified.

She stands up quickly; dropping his hand like it’s made of a fire as bright as his hair. “We should head back to our rooms. We don’t want a guard to find us, we’ve been through enough shit here.”

She can’t even pretend she doesn’t see the disappointment on his face. Can she blame him? Every time he opens up to her, she closes down. She doesn’t mean to, but she’s known from day one that her priority was herself, now her family. She barely has time to keep her friends, who are just friends, alive. How could she manage keeping him alive if they became more?

She tries not to hate herself as he nods and stands up. She wants to squeeze his hand once more, but she knows her damage has been done, no need to add more. They slowly place the books back on the shelf, turn the library lights off, and leave. Their pace back to the dorm rooms is slow and in complete silence. Hunter doesn’t want the night to end, where as she is just burden with the guilt off hurting him once again. 

They reach their hallway after what feels like the longest walk. They stand in front off Casey’s door, still engulfed in their silence. They can meet the other’s gaze. What is she supposed to say? How does she apologize for constantly using this boy without ever giving anything in return? 

“Well, I guess this is goodnight… or morning,” she tries to joke, knowing it will fall flat the moment it leaves her lips. She knows it won’t reach Hunter, that he won’t try to reach it, that he knows as well that it will die. She knows that.

But it does reach him. And he does reach out for the words, and for her. Before she can move, before she can think, before she can even breathe. His lips are gently on hers; drawing out the little air she had in her. This is far more affective then his eyes. She closes her eyes, begins to kiss back, begins to breathe him in, and he’s gone. She opens her eyes in time to see him disappear into his room.

 _Great_ , she thinks, making her way into her own, _we’re definitely both going to die here_.


End file.
